Top-order runs crucial for India’s chances, reckons skipper Rohit Sharma

• Top-order runs crucial for India's chances, reckons skipper Rohit Sharma

Rohit Sharma believes that the key to winning the Champions Trophy is having one of the top-four batters score big in each match. "I mean that's the key to us to have success in this format," the India skipper said. India open their campaign in the eight-team elite competition with a game against Bangladesh in Dubai on Thursday (February 20).

Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer, besides Rohit himself comprise the top-four with all of them showing good form in recent times. Openers Rohit and Gill smashed centuries recently, Kohli returned to form with a half-century in the last ODI (against England) in Nagpur and Iyer has hit the ground running since his recent return to the 50-overs squad.

"Your top-three, four, five batters need to get that big score for you to post a big score eventually. So, I think our top-four batters are quite experienced. And we know that once they are set, they like to get those big runs. We've seen it as well when we played that ODI World Cup (in 2023), there were only a few hundreds that we scored, but we went on to score quite a few times, 350-plus scores, or 330 scores like that," Rohit said recalling India's near successful campaign in the ODI World Cup.

In the ODI World Cup in October-November 2023, India's top-seven scored the highest runs in the competition – 2982 runs with seven centuries and 18 half-centuries. Rohit himself was the second highest scorer with 597 runs and he did not have a single century. Kohli, of course, was the top-scorer with 765 runs with three hundreds. Unluckily for the hosts, India ended up the second best in the tournament courtesy one bad batting session in the final.

"That will be our focus. We will not be looking at the individual milestones and stuff like that. Whoever the two batters are in there; they have to do the job. And the guy who goes in after that has a job to do as well. So, if seven, eight of us think like that, we will end up getting the score that we are looking for. It's just about everyone contributing to the cause," Rohit analysed.

The India skipper is also enthused by the form of his opening partner, who was dropped from the Test squad during Border-Gavaskar Trophy. "There was never a doubt about his ability in this squad. I think we tend to mix formats.

"And I don't think that's the right way to judge any player. Certain players have their strength in certain formats. And if the one format doesn't go well, doesn't mean that the other format will be the same. And it's there for all of us to see what happened in Australia. Things have changed, certainly in a different format. So, with Gill, we know the numbers are crazy."

In the just-concluded three-match ODI series against England, he scored 87, 60 and 112. Coincidentally enough, Gill became No. 1 ODI batter in the ICC rankings on Wednesday, overtaking Babar Azam.

Rohit also said the team is looking forward to winning the Champions Trophy but there are many things that need to fall in place in the process. "Look, it's happening after 2017, which is almost eight years now. Not just this Champions Trophy, but the previous World Cups that we played, they were all important for us. And it's no different here, the ICC Champions Trophy, again, a very important tournament for all of us. And yeah, you come here thinking that you want to lift the trophy, but there are so many things that you have to do right before holding on to that trophy.

"I think as a team our focus will be on that, how we can do things right on the field and how we can move forward. So that will be our goal, that will be our thinking, how we can think about just one game at a time and keep moving forward from there."

Rohit is happy that Mohammed Shami is back in the squad. "All we wanted with Shami was to get him back to wearing that India colours more than anything else. Whether he gets wickets or not that was completely immaterial for us at that point. We wanted him to get back to playing for India. And he's done that," the skipper said. Shami came back into international cricket recently after a long gap.

In the absence of injury-hit Jasprit Bumrah, Shami becomes a crucial cog in the Indian attack. He was the most successful bowler (24 scalps) in the 2023 World Cup – four more than Bumrah despite playing four fewer games. Incidentally that was his last international competition before his recent comeback.

"When you talk about a bowler like Shami who's done the job over the years so many times for us, it's just about getting back to their rhythm and hopefully he can find some rhythm early on in this tournament and help the team."